Home of the Engineer/Troublemaker v2

Gator apparel

I’m at the airport getting ready to fly to Arkansas. Why Arkansas, you ask? For Florida football, of course! I have cousins who live there (Razorback fans, but that’s OK) and they offered tickets to the game tomorrow if I could make it. How could I possibly refuse? It was a lucky break that I wasn’t registered for a race this weekend otherwise I would have been stuck watching on TV from the West Coast again. But this weekend, which is sandwiched between the Rock N Roll Los Angeles half marathon last Sunday and the Avengers race weekend at Disneyland starting this Friday, was surprisingly open. So I’m thrilled to be heading to Fayetteville, AR for the weekend!

In an effort to make my trip preparations as smooth as possible, I laid out the clothes I planned to wear today before I went to bed last night. My brain has trouble picking an outfit in the morning. It’s like writer’s block, but with fashion. Not that I’m fashionable, but that’s another story. But when I was throwing on my clothes at 4 AM (when my alarm went off it took me a good 30 seconds to remember why I was getting up so darn early) I changed my mind about which shirt I wanted to wear. I was obviously going to wear Gator apparel for my flight (that’s basically my wardrobe for the entire weekend), but rather than the one I originally selected, I grabbed something different from my drawer. I think I bought this particular shirt in Tallahassee at Christmas in 2014, but I’ve never actually worn it. I can’t believe it’s been almost two years! After I hurt my knee in January 2015 I put on some weight and the shirt was too small. Since then it’s just been sitting in a drawer, along with a number of other too snug shirts, on the off chance that I lost enough weight to squeeze myself into it. Thanks to Nutrisystem and a strict workout plan (and losing about 12 lbs) I figured that time has finally arrived!

See, yesterday I optimistically slipped on an old pair of jeans that I used to wear when I was at my thinnest (i.e., before the knee injury) and they actually fit. It was a miracle! Knowing what my scale read that morning I would have never guessed that those jeans would be wearable because I’m still 9 or 10 lbs heavier than I was back in early 2015. It seems my body is about the same shape as when I was 120 lbs, though, because the jeans fit perfectly. That’s a win for my boot camp/strength training classes at the gym, for sure. So based on my success with those jeans yesterday, this morning I was brave enough to try on the Gator shirt that still had the tags attached. When I slipped on the Gator shirt this morning and it fit and looked great it I was so happy. I’ve definitely made a lot of progress since Labor Day when I started my diet. And my clothing options have expanded too! My next goal is to get into some jeans that are a size smaller than my current ones, but that will take some more work. For now I’ll be cheering on the Florida Gators in my favorite orange and blue apparel!